The Best Scenes in BSG 214:

Apollo Takes a Dark Turn within

the Black Market

By Koenigrules

While creator and writer Ron Moore did not particularly like this episode as it was a Cylon-free story, Black Market certainly grabbed my attention for the full 60 minutes.  The focus ever since the Cain trilogy has been that there are worse enemies than Cylons: namely, the humans themselves.  And Black Market drives this point home by showing the dark underbelly of the fleet where scoundrels control the supply chain and dole out what people need at exorbitant prices and heavy costs (e.g., selling children into bondage and god knows what else!).  Admiral Adama says it best when he reflects that the Cylons can just sit back and watch this drama unfold where humans kill each other in the thousands.  A depressing view yes, but Galactica has always portrayed things in a gritty type of  realism.   

Captain Lee 'Apollo' Adama enters this world even before Black Market begins.  Ever since the destruction of the Cylon resurrection ship and his miraculous recovery, Lee has been associating with a prostitute, Shevron, aboard Cloud 9. It is not love that keeps them together; rather, Lee regards her merely as a replacement for his lost love on Caprica who wanted to give him a child (only Lee was not ready to undertake that responsibility).  Feeling incredible guilt over that decision, he now connects up to Shevron so that he can help her child, Paya, get the medicine and care she requires.  But this comes with a price as Shevron is an agent for the very black market that Roslin wants to crush.  Actually, we are able to piece all of the aforementioned together through Lee's flashbacks to the mysterious woman on his home planet and Shevon's moving speech to him in the closing minutes of the teleplay.   

While I did not personally like this darker side of Apollo (as I was not prepared to see this change coming over Lee so quickly), it made perfect sense as it introduced an element of tension into the story line.  And it showed that there were various degrees of darkness, with Lee's being a lighter shade compared to the more corruptible leader of the black market, Phelan, who orders his men to commit all sorts of atrocities to keep the fleet in line.   

Some of the most interesting scenes involve Phelan's thugs strangling targets like the recently promoted Commander Fisk of the Pegasus with piano wire.  Of course, Fisk has been dealing with Phelan for awhile—revealing that even military leaders can be corrupted for a price.  When Lee is threatened with a similar strangulation and told to back off of the investigation, this just emboldens the Captain more.  And when Shevon and Paya are kidnapped by Phelan, Lee becomes so enraged that he connects up with former terrorist, Tom Zarek, trying to find information on the black market headquarters. 

Similar to Season One's Bastille Day, TOS Apollo (aka Zarek, played by Richard Hatch) has a fascinating exchange with TNS Apollo.  Apparently Zarek has "his hand in the cookie pot" too.  And while he tells Lee that he refused to make deliveries for Phelan, Zarek does recognize the value of the black market.  In fact, he criticizes Lee's and his father's idealism, suggesting that it is a fantasy in both Adama's minds to think something like this would not happen in the restructuring of their social order.  As Zarek states this, I could not help but think that TOS took the higher road when it aired; but times have changed, and Hatch realizes this.  So in a way, Hatch was criticizing his own show just as much as he was Lee's attitude.  Zarek eventually gives Lee the location of Phelan's lair.  Interestingly, it is aboard the Battlestar Pegasus which also housed such despicable humans like Commander Cain and her followers. 

Lee faces off with Phelan in the final act of Black Market.  As he levels his gun at the man, Phelan can only remark that they are all standing in the mud, making it impossible for anyone to take the moral high ground (This sentiment was also expressed by Zarek earlier, making both former terrorist and smuggler blood brothers in crime).  Lee calmly tells Phelan that he is going to shut down the operation and take Shevon and the girl with him.  When Phelan taunts Lee, the Captain shoots him point blank in the chest and then orders Phelan's minions to not cross the line as their leader had done; otherwise, the black market will be closed down for good.   

When Lee delivers his report to Roslin and Adama, Laura expresses major disappointment that he is letting the black market continue its operations aboard the Pegasus (with the involvement of Zarek).  But she does not understand that some crooked deals have to be made if humans are to survive.  What is interesting is that Adama does not question his son's motives.  No doubt he realizes some of the benefits the black market provides as well.  Perhaps Lee and his father are not quite the idealists that Zarek has portrayed them to be.  

A secondary plot line also continued from the previous week's episode, Epiphanies.  Not trusting Baltar after her repeated visions of him on Caprica with Six, the President offers him a one-time chance to give up the Vice-Presidency.  But Baltar is not willing to lose the power that he possesses, especially to a woman who thinks he is not up to the challenge of command.  If anything, Laura's offer makes Baltar more obstinate and in a pretty gutsy move, he declares that he can't think of anything he wants more.  At one point he probably would have said that he desired Six most of all, but he has changed his goals over the course of the series and now believes the Vice-Presidency will give him the ultimate thrill.  Careful, Gaius!  You know what they say about absolute power corrupting absolutely. 

While not the best in the series, Black Market is deserving of an 8 out of 10 for daring to be so different from the other Galactica teleplays.  And Lee's character was interesting to watch—from the beginning of this episode to its ending.  Jamie Bamber certainly showcased his talents as an actor in Black Market.